


In the Hands of Those Who Journey Forth

by hologramblue



Category: Shin Megami Tensei Series, 真女神転生IV FINAL | Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon, Gen, Pokemon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8473648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hologramblue/pseuds/hologramblue
Summary: It's where the future lies.(SMTIV/SMTIVA Pokemon AU; a collection of moments.)





	1. Vs. Mistakes and Weak Human Legs (Kanda -> Ginza)

They spend the next half an hour scrabbling out of the cave and running at breakneck speed down the road, knowing they have no hope of beating the two to Ginza but needing to absolve themselves by making the effort anyways, and the thing in his head is _fuming_ the entire time.

 _Let me out of here,_ it hisses directly into his mind. The Pokeball on his belt shudders and rattles; a pair of Pidove startle and fly off, leaving branches rocking overhead. Asahi, already several paces ahead and still sprinting while he slows from exhaustion, doesn't spare them even a glance.

"No." He's too tired to focus on replying across their mental link. Nanashi whispers instead, panting out each syllable in time with his feet hitting the dirt. " _You_ \- have done - enough today." Frustration hisses up out of his throat, too, like steam from the stressed valve that is his pounding, aching heart.

 _Nothing that you didn't **make** me do. You're in a heap of trouble, kid._ Yeah, right. The anger - okay, that's real. He can believe that _someone_ got betrayed back there. But getting to that point - going into that cave to release that thing in the first place - that wouldn't have happened if he'd had any inkling of what was down there to begin with.

_That's just like your species. You'll muck around as it pleases you, all fun and games until it turns around and bites you. Then, it's someone else's fault. Poor you._

Shut uuuuuup.

His legs are burning; ne notices that the bird Pokemon in the trees have gone silent above when he slows to a stop, folding over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. They've been doing that a lot. Ever since he picked up the slug-thing. It's like they can sense its presence. "Asahi," he shouts down the road, a plea in his voice to _wait for him_. Far away, she stops, and turns, and sweeps her arm at him, gesturing to _hurry up_. There's no way she's not hurting after all that running, as much as he is if not worse.

Guilt is a powerful motivator.

The green thing is conspicuously silent now. Nanashi seizes the moment of peace and takes out his PokeGear, checks the messages - one received since they left the cave, picked up a signal again. It's...from Manabu. He's awake, and wants to know where his Togetic is. In another, better timeline, this would be the part where Nanashi grins like a Gengar, whispers _someone's in trouuuuble_ , and watches Asahi panic. In this one, it's less funny. Nothing from the Association, via Dad-Boss-Whatever or otherwise. Which...makes sense. Even on the wing, those shady trainers won't reach Ginza for another day. Or _shouldn't_. Unless they have freaky-good traveling skills to go with their freaky-good battling skills. It just feels like things should be happening more suddenly, now that mistakes have been made and mysterious super-Pokemon have been delivered into the hands of trainers who probably shouldn't have them. All the stories about past disasters in Tokyo, all the comics about giant red birds scratching dead zones into the landscape, they're clear on the horror that can strike out of nowhere. But nobody talks much about the unsteady, stretched-out feeling of knowing something bad is coming and not being able to do anything about it. It's the waiting that's getting to Nanashi more than anything. He guesses Asahi's got it the same, if she's already trying to murder her legs racing an Altaria to Ginza.

Speak of the devil, though. "What are you _doing?_ " Her hand lands on his arm and tugs, jarring him out of his focus. He looks up from the screen and into her eyes, big and bright and face tense around them and oh dammit she's been trying not to cry, hasn't she.

Nanashi chooses not to point it out, and waves the PokeGear instead. "Manabu's up." Asahi's shoulders fall a little.

"Is he..."

"Fine. But he, uh, noticed."

Her fingers skitter over her belt guiltily. "Okay." She covers Nanashi's hand, and the Gear's screen, with her hand, and pushes it down and away. "Okay. Let's worry about that later. We need to call..." Not Dad. Dad - _Boss_ \- would make the most sense, he knows it and she knows it, but they glance at each other and it's obvious that neither of them are quite strong enough to own up to him right now about what just happened. "...someone. Send a message to Ginza. For something this serious, they have to take it seriously." Even if it's from some random kid's Gear. Asahi's confidence in this passes from her hand into his.

So they sit down together and rest their legs while Nanashi finds numbers to contact and Asahi drafts their message, trying to sound serious but not so dramatic to get it dismissed as a prank. _A strange pair of trainers is on their way to the Old Association Headquarters in Ginza. They are very powerful. They say they're after Flynn. I don't know what they're planning._ It doesn't need much help to sound ridiculous, does it?

The green thing starts sulking again, radiating bitterness into Nanashi's brain. _Flynn this and Flynn that,_ it mutters, and isn't there a way to make it be quiet? _Oh, Flynn will fix everything. Flynn, what a wonderful champion. He's just another human, and you know it. There's nothing keeping him from making the same mistakes that humans always make._

"Okay, sent." Asahi stands up, dusts off her skirt, takes a deep breath. Her face is set in that way that means her brain is ticking away rapidly at work on a plan of action, and Nanashi realizes dully that he's starting to associate that look with imminent disaster. Hey, there's something she never needs to find out about. "If we're going to get to Ginza in any decent amount of time, it won't be on foot. We need to catch Pokemon we can ride, like Miss Isabeau's Sawsbuck." She paces when she thinks. Contrary to that last realization, this is already shaping up to be a completely normal, non-disastrous plan, like the ones she used to make before _becoming a trainer_ consumed her every waking thought. "Nanashi, you walk really loudly, so you should leave the woods and search the meadows. I'll stay under the trees. We'll keep moving towards Ginza while we look, and use our Gears to ping each other's location every five minutes."

He does _not_ walk loudly. But the net effect is the same - Pokemon act _weird_ around him - so he nods and agrees anyways, ignoring the green thing's derisive telepathic snort, and sets out to catch something that will carry them to town.

-

The weather is ignoring their distress, and any hint of impending trouble at all, for that matter; it's a beautiful day out, sun halfway down from its zenith, trees in their summer green and faraway Pokemon cries slipping through the breeze, making Sneasel's head swivel and her nose twitch with every errant gust. This isn't even one of the really vibrant areas, one of the places completely untouched by rampage. If he wandered a few miles south, he'd be in what's still considered a dead zone, where Pokemon are reluctant to linger and the ecosystem struggles to reassert itself through mosses and grasses and stubborn little saplings.

_But it'll have the last word once your kind are long dead and gone._

Oh, for the love of-

Nanashi startles Sneasel by grabbing the last Pokeball from his belt and opening it with a ferocious gesture. Her claws snap reluctantly around the thing that comes out - green with a luminous red core, blobby, small, in possession of one working eye that fixes scornfully on the boy who released it. "Is there something you want me to _do?_ " he demands, dropping into a crouch to glare back. "If you hate humans _that much_ , you can go. I'll release you."

_I'm your only chance against the foe you want to fight and you know it._

"You're a _pain in the ass_."

The words have barely left Nanashi's mouth when he tenses, feeling the air on his face go cold as his stomach does the same.

Sneasel's claws are raised, the points stretched out towards him, defense and threat between him and her wide, suspicious eyes. It's like there's no Pokeball for her on his belt at all; he senses, deep and aching in the void where all the normal instincts for reading Pokemon should be, that there's no loyalty, no bond, nothing he could call on to sway her. She could attack, for any reason, and he wouldn't know, wouldn't be able to peer into her intentions and understand her actions until she'd put another scar on his face.

His jaw throbs with a swell of anxiety.

_You're not a trainer. There's not a shred of love in your heart for Pokemon. I'd barely have to try to mark you. And then what?_

Pokemon fleeing, turning away, forever, like Sneasel had when he'd first reached out. Half of him would be relieved. There's a gulf there, a canyon he's stared down for years while Asahi yearned and hoped and openly pleaded to be considered a trainer; he could give it up, stop beating his head against the impossibility of trusting one of the creatures. It would be so, so easy.

Asahi's reaction wouldn't be easy. Dad's reaction. Nikkari, Manabu, anyone who might ask him why he was alone. But _Asahi_ , who'd decided years ago that they would travel together, that she would push Nanashi ahead of her as she went to give herself the courage to step into the world. He'd rip that out from under her, and whatever they'd just unleashed - the responsibility would fall onto her alone, all at once.

_You need the power Pokemon can give you, so you're not going to leave me behind._

Because the slug-thing drew Pokemon like a pleasant aroma, set them at ease and made them obedient when Nanashi couldn't, rooted itself in his mind and let him in on the things Pokemon chattered to one another. How was it any better? He just traded one fear for another; if he wasn't kept on edge by the unpredictability of Pokemon themselves, he was kept awake wondering when the only thing giving him their trust would turn them on him.

_Are you really going to drag this out?_

"No," he mutters, shame unfolding in the pit of his stomach. He should have known as much; he _did_ know as much; the moment he allowed himself to become a trainer, sincerely or otherwise, was the moment he was trapped on all sides by Pokemon. There's nothing now but either collapsing under the fear or holding out against the fear to pretend it doesn't exist, and so it will go, on and on until he can't keep up.

Maybe they'll manage to save Flynn from the problem they created for him before it gets to that point.

The chill is gone from the air when Nanashi looks up again, Sneasel no longer on guard. She's wandered off and climbed a rock, peering off across the meadow with her paws shielding the light from her eyes. The slug-thing hasn't moved an inch.

 _Good kid._ He meets its eye, hoping not to look as defeated as he feels, and knowing immediately he's failed at that too. Sneasel chirps greeting at the edge of his hearing. Without looking up, he knows it's to a pair of Skiddo trotting towards them, made curious by the inexplicable tug of the slug-thing's will.

_Now if you're done whining, we've got an Altaria to catch up to._

It is going to be a very, very long day.


	2. Vs. Dreams I (???)

_You are everything, and you are nothing._

_-_

_You are between water and soil and sunlight. Motion sweeps through, churning - slow, slow, season by season. Roots and branches, carbon and nitrogen, vast and enveloping and so so small._

_You feel._

_You are felt._

_-_

_You are a Pokemon when the world tilts sour. You gather yourself up, pinch yourself off, and try, with your new mind, to ignore how quiet existence is when you must walk alone._

_It is not all bad. The sun is warm, and there are many colors._

_But you hunt what you must to make the dissonance end and the equilibrium trickle back into being, and then all is well, and then you are nothing and everything._

_-_

_It happens again._

_-_

_It happens again._

_-_

_There are two kinds of things that move through you with intent to change you; Pokemon, and humans._

_-_

_It happens again._

_-_

_Existence is not quiet. It is noise, noise, always noise. It is the noise of demands that pass into Pokemon from the mouths of humans. You draw it up and bare fangs and the noise rattles you, rights you, empowers you. You are fierce and proud and satisfied with your victory._

_-_

_And yet, it..._

_-_

_...happens again._

_-_

_Nature is a cycle_

_-_

_This will pass_

_-_

_And you will rest_

_-_

_But when_

_-_

_When_

_-_

_when_

_-_

_they demand and they shape and they uproot_

_-_

_again_

_-_

_and again_

_-_

_and their words and bared hearts are so sweet when you are a pokemon_

_-_

_but they have never brought you triumph you can taste when you fade back into yourself_

_-_

_they can promise nothing_

_-_

_they break the eternity of your being and offer up fake victories_

_-_

_the pokemon walk to their purpose now and the cycle spins out of its orbit_

_-_

_wrong wrong all wrong_

_-_

_and again_

_-_

_it hurts you are dying it hurts_

_-_

_you are alive but the equilibrium is gone and the future is a mystery and you are scared_

_-_

_you are a pokemon when the world tilts sour_

_you are you and it hurts because you would be everything and nothing_

_you cannot exist like this any longer_

_you must return to how you were._

_and how were you?_

_you were without humans._

_You were everything, and there were no humans._

_Yours will be a vast and peaceful world._

-

It's dark.

There's snoring to Nanashi's left, and off beyond his right foot, and somewhere above his head. It's dark - because the sun isn't up, he realizes slowly, through a haze of exhaustion. He lets his head fall to the side, appreciates in his groggy state the strange cuteness of Navarre and Chiro cuddled up in an unconscious pile of fur and stump and ghostly tendrils.

His head hurts, faintly, aching with the shadow of a dream he can't quite remember.

But...

It was green, he thinks, as he closes his eyes again to chase sleep into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some events and motivations have to bend to accommodate the mechanics and tone of the target universe, but I think the underlying feeling translates, if not the original idea.


	3. Vs. Visions I

  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you lean out over the edge of the abyss and squint a little bit you can kinda see where my self-control landed.

**Author's Note:**

> FROM DUST I CAME, AND TO DUST I SHALL RETURN drown me in Pokemon AUs
> 
> I have no particular plan of attack for this except to transcribe bits of the game as they happen in this AU whenever it strikes my fancy. I've been doing [little character bios for it on Tumblr](http://hologramblue.tumblr.com/tagged/smtiva%20pokemon%20au) to skip the plot and ramble about team composition, if you're curious who has what. 
> 
> Not everyone is up, though.
> 
> Or talk to me about it there? I have _so many thoughts about Pokemon worldbuilding all the time_ and will not turn down an opportunity to ramble. Or prompts/requests to write specific scenes.
> 
> Big big chunk of credit goes to @iorishiro on Tumblr for messaging me after the initial post with I don't even remember what, which turned into involved chats on team building and character arcs that caused the character bios to happen. They're responsible for like half the material on any given Apoc character, bio written or otherwise.


End file.
